The Real Thrill
by Grigiocuore
Summary: The Joker can't stop: if you do it, the game is broken and life devours you. But sometimes stopping's worth the risk, and J, if not Joker, can discover it. Slash, Batman/Joker established relationship. Thanks to lovejoker for the cover.


_Hi guys! This is a little story about my favourite couple; I think it's a little fluffy here and there, but I want to describe this relationship with a sort of veritable feeling, and there's no love story without a little twist of tenderness; everybody deserves it. Enjoy!_

**The real thrill**

From the night when your everything finished and your nothing began, you prepared yourself so you can't be stopped.

You went beyond every pain, holding it tight and devouring it until it melted with your bones, until you lost yourself in it and found you again; you learnt to consider hitches and tragedies just as the jerks life tries to unbalance you with; you kept running over the bones of fellows, slaves, lovers and enemies without a second glance. Because that's what you do: you run forward, _always forward_, screaming, jumping, without searching for anything and without looking back, because only if you rush against life and time they wouldn't catch you by surprise. Because only if you run this way, you'll almost feel like not being dragged by them, but _riding them_.

And the irony is, it wasn't a choice: you've always been sure that you just _can't_ stop. If you stop the toy is broken, and you're again flesh to crush and life chews you to the point that past ad future exist again, and you're no longer invincible.

_You're just a tiny man with a funny face_.

Yes, if there was a thing you feared, it was to stop.

And then came that kiss, Bats's hand clutching your wrist and your smile liquefying on his lips: and for the first time in years, you were satisfied just to be in that time and that place. That moment was simply enough, and you wanted to savour it with all your body, all your breath, all your anger and joy and hunger.

You stopped. And nothing happened.

It's what you're thinking about when you hear Batsy's steps, and his fingers sinking in your hair. It has become a kind of habit, but never taken for granted: Bruce's touches are always measured, as if he too knows that all your caresses are a bet spat to the world's face. There's all your story, in those gestures, all the things you gave and took from the other: if you are the present, the Bat lives on memories and hopes.

-Ehy- it's the slumber-thick voice he takes on after a day of reunions. -What are you reading?-

You lift your face. -I alternate Nietzche and the fourth level of Super Mario.-

-You stole the Nintendo from Tim?-

-Yep.-

He doesn't laught, but it's all right, or he wouldn't be Bats. He sits next to you, taking off the loafers like a kid coming home from school; three bottons of the shirt are untied, the blu tie loose on the tanned throat. His hand slides on your nape, on the sensitive curve at the base of the neck.

-Today I had to handle a bunch of hysterical Japaneses and at the same time persuade them to support the Africa project. I nearly impaled them with the Wayne Tower model.- A pause.

-I missed you.-

Your face became a far, far mask, losing even its smile. You can't even breath. Three simple words, a fistful of tiredness, of affection, of habit. _Of tenderness_. Tenderness, that thing that with you should sound almost profane, _the worst joke ever_, that thing made of sweet memories, shy hugs behind the corners, cheesy whispers in clear nights, and that neverthless _works;_ that somehow slipped under your skin, and makes you feel alive just like all the blows and the fierce thirsty battles among the piss puddles of the hallways.

_Everybody needs it, J,_ Bats said once, _even an assassin needs a single moment of tenderness. It's a right, not a whim, not a prize. And the two of us have to learn it._

It was that what stopped you: that punch turning caress which showed you that you can have _them both_ and which after stopping you, pushed you forward. Tenderness. Just ridicolous, grotesque, stupid tenderness.

_You can have them both._

-What a priceless trick, Bats.-

Brucey opens wide his half-closed eyes. -Eh?-

-Nothing, sugar- you hastily answer, leaning against the sofa. -Come on now, tell me the whole story: and then I'll tell you how I would have fix the situation.-

-For the last time, rampaging with a Uzi around the office _is not_ a financial solution.-

You laugh, enjoying the smell of wax and dust of Wayne Manor, the heat of Bruce's fingers, the rustle of Alfred cooking dinner; and suddenly you wants to simply feel the taste of that moment, like a sugar pastille, before gulping it.

_The real thrill doesn't belong to the rush, but to the stop._


End file.
